The little shed that could.....

....be useful once again!

This is the story of a little white shed that resided on the outskirts of the small town of Larrabee, while kids were growing up it was a playhouse, a fort, a library and when the kids outgrew it, a junk catcher. I was listening to 'Swap Shop' one day, a free service on our local radio station to buy, sell or giveaway unwanted items and heard the shed advertised to give away.

FREE?? I love FREE!!

I hot-footed it to Larrabee to check out the little shed, it has it's issues but was structurally sound. My niece, Kaiza, was a little girl and I envisioned making it into a playhouse for her, I was very excited! I hired a local guy to move it to the farm, right in front of Leo's shop for easy building, for the mere pittance of $50.

And it sat......well, you just don't jump in without a plan. And boy did I have plans! I wanted to put in a loft and a little seating area with a cute little table and chairs I purchased. I also bought a cute little cabinet to hold all of Kaiza's treasures while she was playing in her playhouse.

But first the roof needed to be replaced, I procrastinated, I wasn't a carpenter so I guess I kept thinking that some night the fairies would magically appear and put a new roof on it, it didn't happen. I still had plans, I just knew it would make the cutest playhouse but then reality struck. I came to the conclusion that Kaiza was not the type of kid to play by herself. She would not use the playhouse like I imagined.

So it sat.....one day my oldest sister, Sara and hubby, Max were here, Sara spotted the playhouse and fell in love with it. Their great granddaughter, Hannah, would LOVE it. I thought about it, for a total of 10 seconds and said, yes, Hannah could have the playhouse. We loaded it onto their trailer and away the little white shed went to Denison.

Where it got a new roof and skids underneath to facilitate moving, and then it sat. Another two years went by, Hannah grew up and out of the playhouse mode so Sara and Max asked me if I wanted it back. How could I refuse, it would make a cute garden shed, they loaded it back on the trailer and brought it here. I leveled a spot in the back yard, put down bridge planks for it it set on and Bruce carefully moved it into place.

Where it sat, it had a new roof but still needed new siding, windows and door. I'm still not a carpenter so I procrastinated more, two years more. We were planning on going out to WI so my chore girl, Jillian, drove over to go through chores with me. She has a small flock of chickens and they needed a coop upgrade. She was telling me about a coop made of pallets she saw on Pinterest and was trying to get her dad, Tim, to build it. After she left, I looked over at my little shed and the lightbulb went on. I called Tim and said I had their new coop should he accept the challenge. He came over the next night, I pointed out the good, new roof and skids, the bad, and the just plain ugly in other places. He couldn't accept it soon enough, he said trying to build a coop out of pallets was a nightmare!

As soon as we had a break in the farming, Bruce loaded the little shed on the pallet forks of the tractor....

....well, he tried to load from the front but the pallet forks were trying to pop out the floor so we went to plan B. He loaded from the side and that worked well except he was driving blind! We only had about a mile of gravel so I drove the gator along side and guided him.

We met our neighbor, another Tim, mowing the roadside so of course we had to stop and talk, meanwhile taking up half the road with the shed. Finally someone else came along so Tim had to turn around the mow the other direction and we continued on.

Tim wanted the shed parked by the garage to make it easy access to tools and power, Jaylene just shook her head. She said it would still be sitting there next spring, she of so little faith!!

The next day I drove past their house on the way to town and the little shed was already looking better, the worst end had new siding on it and the door in that I took over. I was so impressed! Tim really went to town, he put new siding on each side, Jillian painted, new windows were put in and the entire shed insulated inside with new nest boxes. It was ready for occupancy.

Last week we took the tractor over to move it to it's permanent location. This time we knew it had to be loaded from the side.

Up and away....

....Bruce carried his precious load with me directing the little shed to it's final resting place.

Jillian was grinning from ear to ear and not just because her boyfriend was here to celebrate the auspicious occasion.

Bruce and I were just as happy, me that I no longer had to look at the unfinished building and Bruce, that he could breath a sigh of relief that one day I wouldn't say, "Oh, honey.......!!

And I have no doubt the little red shed is happy also, it's useful once again, not sitting out with the weather with wind blowing through the windows and the holes in the siding.

It does have to put up with chicken poop but there are trade-offs to everything.